The House of the Misty Star Part 14

"How good it will be to get back to it. Wish I could get a whiff of the air right now. Yes, indeed! I am American to the ends of my fingers, and hallelujah to the day when I sail back."

I entered into her plans with enthusiasm, reserving my determination never to lose sight of her till she was in safer hands than mine.

She was very eager to begin earning money for her pa.s.sage home, offering to teach, to scrub, and even to learn to cook, if we'd learn to eat it.

I pointed out that, with her ability to sketch and her natural fascination for young girls, the forming of cla.s.ses would be a simple matter. She was only to teach them drawing at first.

To this she demurred; the pay was so poor that she pleaded to be allowed to have one little cla.s.s in English.

I was dubious; but, as it was only a beginner's cla.s.s, I consented--upon her solemn promise to "cut out all ragtime cla.s.sics and teach plain cats and dogs, rats and mice."

The process of readjustment in life is sometimes as painful as skin grafting. The pa.s.sing of each day under the new conditions which Zura's coming had brought about marked for both of us either a decided growth or a complete backset. With earnestness I endeavored to make my old eyes see the world and all its allurements from the windows of Zura's uncontrolled youth. Earnestly I then appealed to her to try to understand that life was a school and not a playground and to look without prejudice at the reasonableness of conventions which life in any country demanded, if happiness was to come.

For the first time since I had known her the girl seemed fully to realize that regulated law was a force, and no bogey man which crabbed old grandfathers dangled before pleasure-loving girls, and for her running loose in the green pasture of life was at an end. The bit she must learn to wear would teach her to be bridle wise. However stupid, the process was an unavoidable necessity.

Zura was really serious when we finished our long conference. She leaned over and put her hand on mine. "n.o.body but father was ever so kind to me. I'll truly do my best." As if afraid of growing too serious she added: "But, Miss Jenkins,"--her voice was low and her eyes sparkled, proving how hard the old Zura was dying--"I just bet I kick over the traces some time. I feel it in my system."

"You what?" I reminded.

"Madam, I have a premonition that this process of eliminating the gay and the festive will be something of a herculean task. In other words, keeping in the middle of the road is a dull, tough job."

"Oh, Zura!" I cried despairingly.

"Yes'm. But from this minute I am starting down the track on the race for reformation. Give me time. Even a colt can't get a new character and a sweet disposition in a week."

As the days pa.s.sed it proved not a race, but a hard, up-hill battle, where in gaining one fight she sometimes lost two, and while still aching with the last defeat had to begin all over again. The vision, though, of the home-going to America lured and beckoned her to the utmost effort to conquer not only circ.u.mstances, but herself.

Jane and I helped whenever we could, but there were places so dark through which the girl must pa.s.s alone, that not even our fast increasing love could light the shadows of the struggles.

I realized that a young girl should have young company of her own kind; but there was none for her. In Hijiyama, and especially in our neighborhood, were many high-cla.s.s families. Even members of the royal line claimed it as residence. With these the taint of foreign blood in any j.a.panese marked that person impossible. I dreaded to tell Zura this.

She saved me the trouble by finding it out for herself. Ever afterward, when by chance she encountered the elect, her att.i.tude caused me no end of delight and amus.e.m.e.nt. In courteous snubbing she outcla.s.sed the highest and most conservative to them. In absenting herself from their presence Zura's queenly dignity would have been matchless, had she been a little taller.

As much as possible, I made of myself a companion for her and the most of our days were spent together.

It was a curious pact between young and old. One learning to keep the law, the other to break it, for in my efforts to be a gay comrade as well as a wise mother I came as near to breaking my neck as my well-seasoned habits. Zura had a pa.s.sion for out-of-door sketching, as violent as the whooping cough and lasting longer and the particular view she craved proved always most difficult of access, It severely tested my durability and mettle. I wondered if Zura had this in mind, but I stuck grimly to my task and though often with aching muscles and panting lungs, scrambled by dangerous paths to the edge of some precipice where I dared neither to stand up nor to sit down, but I had longed for excitement and happenings and dared not complain when my wish was fulfilled.

I could always count upon it that, whatever place Zura chose, from there one could obtain the most splendid view of vast stretches of sea, the curve of a temple roof, a crooked pine, or a ma.s.s of blossom. She was as irresistibly drawn to the beautiful as love is to youth. Her pa.s.sion for the lovely scenery of j.a.pan amounted almost to worship.

I had never been a model for anything. Now I was used as such by my companion indiscriminately, in the background, in the foreground and once as a grayhaired witch. I was commanded to sit still, to not wink an eyelash, though the mosquitoes feasted and the hornets buzzed.

Fortunately the summer holiday gave me some leisure. I absorbed every moment seeking comprehension of youthful ways of looking at things, and in Zura's effort to reduce her wild gallop to a sober pace, the way was as rough for the girl, as the climb up the mountain side was for me.

Often she stumbled and was bruised in the fall. Brushing aside the tears of discouragement she pluckily faced about and tried again.

There were many battles of tongue and spirit but when the smoke had been swept away, the vision was clearer, the purpose firmer.

That monotony might not work disaster or routine grow irksome our workdays were interspersed with picnics, journeys to famous spots and, for the nights, moonlight sails on the Inland Sea.

Page Hanaford was our frequent guest. To Jane and me his att.i.tude was one of kindly deference and attention. Towards Zura it was the mighty call of youth to youth. She answered with ready friendship. It was easy to see that the boy was buoyant by nature, but the moods that sometimes overtook him were strange. Often at a moment when the merriment was at its height, the hand of some invisible enemy seemed to reach out and clutch him in a dumb horror, confused the frankness of his eyes, left him with bloodless lips. From light-hearted happiness he plunged to silent gloom.

Twice it had occurred when the day was heavy with moisture, thick and superheated by the summer's sun. The last time it happened, to the heat was added the excitement of a police launch stopping our little pleasure craft and demanding our names and business. When it left Page grew silent and, until we landed, lay in the prow his face hidden by his hat. Mental or physical I could not say. I wished I knew for it subtracted the joy from the day as surely as dampness takes the kink out of unnatural curls.

When I mentioned the incident to Jane, she only looked wise and smiled.

I could almost believe she was glad, for it gave her unlimited opportunity for coddling. Zura made no comment. So great was the rebound partial freedom induced, her spirits refused to descend from the exhilarating heights of "having a good time and doing things." She blandly ignored any suggestion of hidden trouble, or the possibility of it daring to come in the future. Untiring in her preparations for our festivities, the hour of their happening found her so gracious a hostess, naturally she was the pivot around which the other three of us swung.

I wondered if, in our many festivities we were not forming habits of useless dissipation. Jane said our parties were much livelier than church socials at home. Our experienced leader a.s.sured me, however, these picnics were as slow as a gathering of turtles in a coral cave, but they continued, ceasing only when the nights grew too chill for comfort. Our pleasures were then transferred to the homeyness of the little living-room in "The House of the Misty Star."

In my adoption of Zura the humor was incidental; in Zura's adoption of Jane it was uppermost. From the first the girl a.s.sumed proprietorship and authority that kept the little gray missionary see-sawing between pleasure and trouble. By Zura's merry teasing Jane's naturally stammering tongue was fatally twisted. She joked till tears were near; then with swift compunction Jane was caught in arms tender and strong and loved back to happiness.

Like a mother guarding a busy careless child, Zura watched Miss Gray's comings and goings. Overshoes and wraps became a special subject of argument. There was no denying that in the arrangement of Jane's clothes there was a startling transformation.

My attention was called to this one morning when I heard a merry, audacious voice cry out, "See here, Lady Jinny, do you think it a hallmark of piety to have that hefty safety-pin showing in your waistband? Walk right back and get your belt."

"Oh, Zury," pleaded the hara.s.sed woman, "what's the use of putting it on? I'll just have to take it off to-night and, my dear, people are waiting for me."

"Let 'em whistle, Sweetheart," was the unmoved response. "Even though the heathen roar, I cannot turn aside from my purpose of making you a Parisian fashion-plate."

"Yes, child! It is good of you to want to dress me up. But," with a half-laugh, "don't try to make me resemble one of those foreign fashion ladies. I saw one picture in a style paper that looked almost immoral.

The placket of the dress was at the foot and showed two inches of the ankle."

"Trust your mother, innocent child," Zura advised, "those picture ladies don't wear dresses, just symptoms and I'd slap anybody that would ask you to wear a symptom. Now, tell me where to search for your belt."

Jane, ever weak in certain resistances, yielded and adored the more while submitting.

Under Zura's care Jane's person grew neater and trimmer. In her face, now filled out with proper food and rest, there was a look of happiness as if some great hope foreshadowed fulfilment.

The self-appointed missionary in her talks with me seldom referred to her work in detail. I respected her reserve and asked no questions, for I gravely doubted any good results from her labor. But to Zura she confided her plans and her dreams, and Zura having many dreams of her own, listened and sympathized. In all the Empire there was no collection of humanity that could surpa.s.s in degradation and sordid evil the inhabitants of the quarter that Jane Gray had chosen to uplift. Time and again the best-trained workers had experimented in this place. Men and women with splendid theories, and the courage to try them had given it up as hopeless, for fear of their lives.

Once only I remonstrated with Miss Gray and that when there had been in that section an unprovoked murder of particular horror. The answer of the frail woman was:

"I don't want to make you anxious, Miss Jenkins, but I must go back. The people are my friends. I've been charged with a message for them and I must deliver it. My poor life would be small forfeit, could I but make them fully understand."

I said no more for I thought if Jane was set on dying that way she'd just as well get all the pleasure out of it possible. To my surprise, unmolested and unafraid, she made her way through streets where no one officer went alone. Haunts of criminals and gamblers, murderers in hiding followed by their unspeakable womenkind.

This dream of Miss Gray's scorned to limit itself to a hospital for diseased bodies of the wretched inhabitants, but included a chapel for sick souls. These days it was difficult enough to get money for real things, the unreal stood no chance. Without resources of her own, backed by no organization, it seemed to me, like a child planning a palace. To the little missionary the dawn of each glorious day brought new enthusiasm, fresh confidence and the vision was an ever beckoning fire, which might consume her body if it would accomplish her desire.

At present she rented a tiny house in the Quarters and called it her preaching place. I was told that to it flocked the outcasts of life who listened in silent curiosity to the strange foreign woman delivering a message from a stranger foreign G.o.d.

As the days went by the members of my household were deeply absorbed in dreams of a hospital, pursuit of pa.s.sage money to America, and wisdom in guiding girls.

In all the years in my adopted country I'd never seen so lovely an autumn. Colors were brighter, the haze bluer, and far more tender the smile of the heavens on the face of the waters.

The song of the North wind through the top of the ancient pines was no melancholy dirge of the dying summer, but a hymn of peace and restful joy to the coming winter.

One lovely day melted into another. The year was sinking softly to its close when one evening found Zura, Jane and me quietly at work in the living-room of the House of the Misty Star. Jane was knitting on the eternal bibs, Zura adding figures in a little book.